I’ve had a good share of thoughts about how plague and war displace people and alter the course of culture, but I’d never considered the unintended consequences that accompanied World War II when so many artists and writers fled Europe. I am well aware of the scientists brought to the U.S. after the war and the ones that left Germany prior to avoid being caught up with the anti-intellectualism that was occurring and subsequent persecution.

Here we are today. America is on the cusp of redefining itself in ways no one can quite predict yet, but the old America will never again be what comes next. Tragically, those who take advantage of becoming ex-pats typically do so for lifestyle and economic reasons, hardly for the intellectual conditions they are leaving behind, though they may voice their disdain for the gross stupidity they perceive.

When particular intellectual classes of people had to escape Europe or perish, they left privilege and were forced to adapt to circumstances where they were now the outsiders without much merit, though they were likely respected even if somewhat suspect.

While I should certainly leave, the countries in which I could consider living don’t have more intellectual curiosity either. There is only economic interest in what might create jobs. In any case, I would not arrive with the credentialed papers recognizing my contribution to any school of thought; I am merely the average person without a grand formula of how a people, country, or planet could escape the trajectory into the stupid that we are barreling towards.

Should I ever discover an answer to even a small question regarding anything at all, it might arrive in something written here or maybe an attempt at a thing more ambitious than a simple blog post, but that rubicon is yet to be crossed.